THE CRIME AT BIG TREE PORTAGE
your guide and we've come in to St. Amiel to buy some grub and gear we've run short of."
"All right." And with this arrangement we entered the store.
I will not make any attempt to describe by what roundabout courses of talk November learned all the news of desolate little St. Amiel and of the surrounding countryside. Had I not known exactly what he wanted, I should never have dreamed that he was seeking information. He played the desultory uninterested listener to perfection. The Provincial Police had evidently found means to close the mouth of the lumber-jack for the time, at least, as no hint of Lyon's death had yet drifted back to his native place.
Little by little it came out that only five men were absent from the settlement. Two of these, Fitz and Baxter Gurd, were brothers who had gone on an extended trapping expedition. The other absentees were Highamson, Lyon's father-in-law; Thomas Miller, a professional guide and hunter; and, lastly, Henry Lyon himself, who had gone up-river to visit his traps, starting on the previous Friday. The other men had all
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